Samsung has launched its latest flagship smartphones the Galaxy S9 and the S9 Plus in India. The smartphones have not improved much in terms of design, but their camera now comes with a variable aperture lens, which switches between f/1.5 for low-light shots and f/2.4 for capturing normal photos. The company has priced the 64GB variant of the Galaxy S9 at Rs 57,900 and it will cost Rs 65,900 for the 256GB model. Also, the Galaxy S9 Plus will be available priced at Rs 64,900 and Rs 72,900 for the 64GB and 256GB variants respectively. Both the handsets will be up for sale starting March 16 and can be currently be pre-booked online from the Samsung Shop, Flipkart and offline from select Samsung offline stores.
Buyers can also avail a Rs 6,000 cashback by purchasing the smartphones using an HDFC credit/debit card or via the Paytm mall. It should be noted that one can buy the device offline for availing the cashback, however, they need to scan a QR Code and pay via the Paytm Mall app. There is also an additional Rs 6,000 off on exchange with the mobile phones. Also, while purchasing the smartphones from the Airtel Online Store one needs to make a downpayment of Rs 9,900 and perform monthly recharge of Rs 2,499 over a period of 24 months to avail 2TB of data.
With Reliance Jio, buyers can opt-in for an annual plan priced at Rs 4,999 and avail 1TB of data for the next 12 months. Vodafone postpaid users with plans priced at Rs 999 and above will also receive a one-year free Netflix subscription with the smartphones. Additionally, the company has introduced a new Samsung Rewards program, using which customers can aggregate reward points while paying using their credit/debit cards, UPI, wallets via Samsung Pay and redeem them later for benefits like buying movie tickets, shopping, bill payments and more.
Samsung also says that using Carrier Aggregation technology with Jio and Airtel, the Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones will be able to access the internet nearly 2.5 times faster with speeds of up to 250 Mbps.
In terms of specifications, the Galaxy S9 features a 5.8-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED panel whereas the Galaxy S9 Plus comes with a larger 6.2-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display. Both the devices are powered by the Exynos 9810 chipset in India and come with new AR Emojis, which create animated Emojis using facial expressions. The Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus come 4GB and 6GB of RAM respectively, also there is an option of expanding their internal storage up to 400GB by using a microSD card. You can read our first impressions of the smartphones here and an in-depth explanation of how the variable aperture tech works on the devices here.